


The trouble with wanting is I want you (all the time)

by ImberReader



Series: Light a blue flame, I’m running (to you) [2]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: (Mutual) Pining, Alternate Universe - Arranged Marriage, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, I feel like it should be a separate category of its own, Post-Battle Pining, Sort Of, Though both are established background factors for this piece, Wound Tending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-06
Updated: 2020-01-06
Packaged: 2021-02-25 05:01:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22150510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImberReader/pseuds/ImberReader
Summary: Wanting, Brienne finds, is easier when you have little more than vague notion of what you long for. But in aftermath of a battle that could've cost too highly, she comes to a realization some knowledge comes with a cost worth paying.
Relationships: Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth
Series: Light a blue flame, I’m running (to you) [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1594345
Comments: 18
Kudos: 101





	The trouble with wanting is I want you (all the time)

**Author's Note:**

> "1 for the romance prompt meme?" - Anonymous 
> 
> **1\. A Touch**
> 
> This is almost as long as the original piece for this Verse and it would probably would benefit from being more concise, but today I was feeling Emotional, so there you have it. Second installment to the series, hopefully not the last, though do not expect real chronology.
> 
> Title from [ that my friend attacked me with today.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNEnvoloZQY)
> 
> Not beta-d. We embarrass ourselves publicly like men. You can find me on [tumblr](https://scoundrels-in-love.tumblr.com/).

Wanting is easier when you have no concept or words for the ache in your rib cage or your weary fingers or longing for something undefinable to cushion the weight of cold darkness in nights filled with doubts over decisions that will affect too many lives. At least that is what Brienne thinks. After all, a child will crave food, but if he does not know all the many kinds there are, if he doesn’t know the sweetness of strawberries or honeyed milk, his mind will conjure simpler images to taunt him with instead of impossible feasts.

She wishes she could go back to that simplicity.

To the time all she wanted after an exhausting day was her father’s comforting hug and low voice reminding her that _words are wind_. To when her mother’s and brother’s smile, blurred around edges by sunlight and time, would fill her with vague understanding of solace, but the yearning digging in her chest was blunted by knowledge no one can cross the riptide separating them.

To the time thought of loving and being loved by anyone else was incomprehensible and merely a breeze of longing, instead of a constant gale that pushes her toward the sea that may swallow her foolish heart.

But, she thinks as she watches Jaime shed his armor, perhaps it’s not the sea she should fear, but the jagged rocks awaiting her beneath Casterly Rock.

Before he can catch her staring, she turns away and focuses on her own armor. By all means, their squires should be here to help, but Jaime had sent them away on some errand, though she thinks he merely had no mind to deal with anyone in this state. They’ve seen so many men, and boys as well, fighting and dying. Both on the ‘wrong’ and the ‘right’ side, if there is one. She hopes there is. She has to believe there is.

There’s a hissed curse behind her and in next moment, she’s by his side, helping with the particularly frustrating buckle. He glares at her (not at her, but his own loss of ability, Brienne reminds herself), but she doesn’t step away.

“You hurt your ribs in the fall, did you not? The sooner you get out of this and see Maester the better,” she explains matter-of-factly and something softens in his face as he acknowledges her diversion from the emptiness by his right side. In turn, something sways in her chest at the sight, tapping gently against her heart.

Together, they divest him of his armor quickly, but before she can return to her side of the tent (the camp can only support one garishly lavish Commander tent and it is not as if they can explain they’re wedded in no more than name and co-leadership), he grasps her arm with the half undone vambrace. She opens her mouth to ask, then closes it, because the _wanting_ is back, whispering to her about basking in the simplicity of taking care of each other that had drove her across the invisible line running through their shared space in the first place.

They work in silence, even when his fingers graze the white line sitting a top few red ones and far too many black ones on her left wrist, revealed where her doublet’s sleeve has ridden up. They have never spoken about it and by now, Brienne doubts they ever will. The reasons why it doesn’t really matter have changed through the years, from spiteful defiance to _it’s not what binds us together_. And even the definition of the ‘it’ that does has shifted and grown, far beyond words she ever thought she’d use or he is likely to think in regards to her.

She takes in a shuddering breath and pulls her arm away to get started on the next piece, pretending not to notice the twist of Jaime’s mouth as if she had dug her fingers into a dark and deep bruise, but he is too stubborn to say it.

Last of battle induced rush has seeped out of Brienne by the time her blue armor has become a pile on the floor and part of her wants to crumble by it, wants his arms around her - solid and filled with warmth of life -, wants nonsensical promises of ‘we did the best we could’, wants, _wants_.

(He gave her this armor and the sword, he shields her back and her left in battlefield and bloodbath of court, cannot he be another sort of armor, just for half an hour? But no, if now she’s merely a child imagining the sweetness of a foreign fruit, knowing it would surely ruin her.)

“I need to wash my face,” she says instead of all the nonsense buzzing softly in her throat. “Wouldn’t want to give the Measter even worse a scare, true,” Jaime agrees and she bristles a little, but enough for him to see. (But what doesn’t he see?) His mouth twists again, but not in satisfaction as it used to when he landed a well placed reminder of her ugly looks. But Brienne has no time to decipher it as he pulls her towards a chair, leaving her standing there dumbly and leaves to fetch a bowl of water and cloth, dragging another chair closer as he returns.

“Sit. I have had enough of standing for now and I have no intentions of tiptoeing for the right angle.” She does as told and catches a glimpse of grin. “This is the best thing to come of this battle - you have never listened to me before.”

“I listen when you say things worth hearing.”

The sunbeam fades from Jaime’s face as he puts cloth to her cheek and begins cleaning away the blood and the grime. “I told you not to charge in there - you could have died.”

“I think the experience of battlefield you like to bring up at any opportunity will tell you that any of us could have died at any moment.” The first part almost brings out a smile, before it is chased away by reality. She regrets it.

“That doesn’t mean you should seek it out, Brienne. You know better.” He sounds hoarse, somehow more so than he had when they entered the tent, though it makes no sense.

“I do. And I knew I could manage.” She had, too. It hadn’t even been the moment she earned a new scar. Brienne tries not to think of the one that had.

“And the other time?” Of course Jaime doesn’t hesitate to remind her. He tilts her head, fingers gentle on her jaw and then chin, so he can get a better angle.

“Also then.” She hadn’t, in truth. But she had seen him fall from his horse, sword just out of his grasp, and nothing else had mattered. Her hands clench on her knees, much like her gut does at the memory, and also to contain the ache in her hands, the sort that only comes from wanting to touch him. (It’s becoming more and more familiar with each month and she fears the day it will stop fading away. It’s bad enough it arrives even when he’s days’ worth of ride away.)

“You shouldn’t prioritize me on the battlefield.”

“I did not.” It’s not a complete lie, she had saved other soldiers as well, but it’s not clear truth as well - living among the lions has taught her few things about necessarily cast shadows. And yet she continues, goaded by the weighed gentleness of his gaze and touch.

“And every soldier in an army will protect their commander. We need you.” _I need you_ . As commander, as friend, as everything he cannot be and everything he _is_ though he doesn’t see it.

“We need you, too,” he tells her resolutely and she _wants_ to hear the same sentiment in it so badly she almost can.

He puts the cloth away, done with cleaning, leans in closer and angles her face again, inspecting the wound on her forehead. “It will scar.” She nods mutely at that. “They say scars make a man, Ser.”

Part of her wants to take offense, like she had back when they first met and he had told her he doubted marriage between men would do much to ally the Kingdoms. (The way dust had kicked around him when he landed on ground hard a minute later still sends a spark of satisfaction through her.) Yet, the rest of her knows he means well, using the title he himself had given her. _You’ve earned it with honor and wear it with such._

 _“_ If not that, at least it cannot do any further damage to my looks,” she concurs.

Jaime opens his mouth to say something, but his agreement is not something Brienne wants to hear right now so she snatches the cloth from the table: “Your turn.”

Since he hasn’t suffered a head injury that bleeds quite profusely, there’s less work to be done, but she doesn’t rush. And if he notices that Brienne uses the advantage of having both hands to keep touching his jaw almost constantly, he says nothing.

The silence stretches and winds around them, like the ribbon that had been tied around their joined hands during the wedding, though it brings comfort instead of resigned dread.

Neither of them move to rise even when she is done, taking what little rest and strength they can before they are thrown back into counting their losses and gains, planning next move.

Yes, Brienne thinks as she looks at him, it was immensely easier when she didn’t know the want of kissing someone more than words without anchor in a song, when relief hadn’t taken form of his pulse and his arms and her name on her husband’s lips. When _If only Jaime was here_ wasn’t the first thought to cross her mind as she stands on battlements, staring at the night sky - sleepless from her duties (which he’d give insight in or frustratingly joke about) or merely growing pains of longings as they take shape.

And yet, none of the steps she has taken to be here have been _easy_. Natural and necessary, maybe, but not easy. So it makes a cruel sort of sense that loving her husband, her soulmate, would be the same.

She smiles a little at the thought and Jaime quirks eyebrow at her, but she blessedly escapes a questioning with the arrival of Maester with Jaime’s squire in tow, who then piles new reports on the table. The reprieve is over, but it has given her much to treasure and feed her longings piece by piece to quiet the hungry ache when Jaime is unreachable. (Even if sometimes it is when he’s standing right next to her.)

**Author's Note:**

> Alternatively titled "two pining idiots keep finding excuses to continue touching each other".


End file.
